Insight 2022 - Day 4 - Smarter decision-making for your population
Smarter decision-making for your populationNHS England has identified Population Health Management (PHM) as a core strategic aim f

Insight 2022 - Day 3 - Decision-making in the 21st century NHS – how does it really work?
Decision-making in the 21st century NHS – how does it really work?The NHS Long Term Plan placed an emphasis on better use of data

Insight 2022 - Day 2 - How the science of systems thinking can support the craft of wise decision making – A GP practice case study
How the science of systems thinking can support the craft of wise decision making – A GP practice case studyIf yo

Insight 2022 - Day 2 - Understanding the links between delayed discharges and hospital congestion
Understanding the links between delayed discharges and hospital congestionIn January 2022 NHS figures showed that
Insight 2022 - Day 1 - ICSs working together to be intelligence-led organisations: lessons from history
ICSs working together to be intelligence-led organisations: lessons from historyHow can Integrated Care Systems (ICS

What are the ethical challenges in addressing inequities?
Produced by Angie Hobbs - the world’s first Professor in the Public Understanding of Philosophy – this paper examines the ethical questions raised by our report outlining strategies for reducing inequity.

What was the question again?
We hear a lot about what’s stopping the NHS making the most of its army of talented analysts. Some say we just need more data, or data of better quality. Others point to deficiencies in our infrastructure, IT kit or the software we use. But I’m not so sure. For me the biggest shortfall is in good questions that we can feasibly address.

‘Might’ is right
A good idea can be ruined by over-selling.

Urgent Community Response – What Works?
The Strategy Unit, with our partners Ipsos, has been commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) to provide a long-term national evaluation of the Urgent Community Response programme rolled-out across England. The programme aims to shift resources to home and community-based services as part of the NHS commitment to providing the right care, to the right people, at the right time. And there are a range of outputs from the early work that provide learning for local systems as they develop their services.

We saw them before they were famous: reflections on AphA’s away day
In June 1976, the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall.

Appointing an ICS ‘Chief Analyst’
The Strategy Unit has, over the last ten years, developed a way of working that has allowed us to become recognised as a leading analytical organisation in the NHS.

Bringing patient flow modelling into general practice
With general practice appointments hitting the highest numbers on record (34.8 million in England alone in November 2021), careful organisation and planning for patient appointments is increasingly important.

Autism evidence scan identifies knowledge gaps
Diagnosing autism takes account of a person’s differences in social interaction and communication, sensory sensitivity, interests and behaviours. Yet autism varies hugely from person to person, both in how it looks and how it is experienced.

What do we know about the benefits of digital social care records?
The pace of change in the development and use of digital technology is astonishing. The use of such technology has been an essential element in the health and care services response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, the previously unthinkable became commonplace.

Decision makers can make much better use of analysis
Part of the Strategy Unit mission is to improve the use of analysis in decision making. Current use is, to employ a euphemism, variable.

The Intellectual Forum: a source of fresh perspectives on decision making
The literature on decision making is like a disaster movie highlights reel. Barely has one calamity registered before another serious misstep takes its place. Case study after case study flashes past, each with its own lessons and warnings.

Advancing the analytical capability of the NHS and its ICS partners
The Strategy Unit were asked by the Strategy and Development Team in the Directorate of the Chief Data and Analytics Officer, NHSE/I, to make recommendations for advancing analytical capability across the health and care workforce.

Securing the future of domiciliary care
The Strategy Unit is embarking on an exciting project with WM ADASS, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care Services in the West Midlands to explore the challenges facing domiciliary care and the opportunities that exist to transform and improve the service.

Strategy Unit devises a new method for classifying outpatient appointments
The number of outpatient attendances in England is now approaching 100 million each year.

The impact of social care on demand for urgent hospital care: have we reached a consensus?
The care home COVID crisis and the effects of longstanding staffing and funding shortages has meant that social care has featured heavily in the media over the last 12 months.